{"id":709516,"date":"2026-06-17T12:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/709516\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T12:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:41:10","slug":"nia-coffey-is-the-latest-newcomer-thriving-with-the-lynx-under-cheryl-reeve-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/709516\/","title":{"rendered":"Nia Coffey is the latest newcomer thriving with the Lynx under Cheryl Reeve | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Nia Coffey has changed teams five times in a 10-year WNBA<\/a> career. Landing with the Minnesota Lynx was a fitting reward for the journey.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old forward is from the Twin Cities area, so it’s not quite right to declare she’s found a home. The combination of returning to her native state and joining the powerhouse Lynx, however, has created an ideal scenario for Coffey, who entered the league in 2017 as the fifth overall pick in the draft out of Northwestern.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels good. I always loved how the Lynx played. It just felt weird because I was always on other teams,\u201d Coffey said after Minnesota’s 107-74 victory<\/a> over Portland on Monday. \u201cI\u2019m glad it was a possibility for me to be on this team. I love the way we play. I love our coaching staff and our players. It\u2019s great. So I\u2019m glad it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

With 15 points, five rebounds, four assists, three steals and three blocks, Coffey became just the fifth different player in franchise history to hit those minimums in a game as the Lynx set a team record with seven players in double-digit scoring on the way to their fourth 100-point output in 14 games this season.<\/p>\n

Coffey, who had the crowd at Target Center roaring with three first-quarter 3-pointers and a layup off an inbound pass to beat the halftime buzzer<\/a>, was awarded the game ball from coach Cheryl Reeve and her staff afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer level of compete, her ability to play so vertically, shot-blocking, rebounding \u2014 she gives you all that energy and sets the tone for us,\u201d Reeve said. \u201cShe\u2019s such a big part of our defensive identity and our toughness, and then shooting the 3 as we\u2019ve asked for. Happy for her. We do ask a lot from her at both ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reeve also spoke of her fondness for Coffey’s coachability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many things. I think what I appreciate about her \u2014 probably because I don\u2019t get it from the rest of the starters \u2014 is she listens,” Reeve said. \u201cShe really looks at you dead in your eye and receives the information and goes out there and does exactly what you\u2019re asking her to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coffey laughed when told of her coach’s positive assessment of her listening skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to do a good job, so you kind of have to know what they\u2019re asking for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Coffey’s father, Richard, was a paratrooper in the Army who starred in college at Minnesota and played briefly in the NBA. Her younger brother, Amir, has played the last seven seasons in the league, most recently with Phoenix. She played at Hopkins High School, the powerhouse program in suburban Minneapolis that later produced Paige Bueckers, the first overall pick in the 2025 draft.<\/p>\n

For whatever the reasons, Coffey’s WNBA career never truly took off. Much more of a role player than a key contributor prior to signing with the Lynx, Coffey has only one prior season of averaging more than seven points per game.<\/p>\n

This season, she’s got career-best averages going in just about every category \u2014 minutes (26.4), points (8.7), rebounds (5.9) and assists (2.1) per game and field goal (50%) and 3-point (43.9%) shooting. With star Napheesa Collier yet to play<\/a> following ankle surgery, Coffey has started every game for the league-leading Lynx (11-3).<\/p>\n

After losing several key players to free agency and the expansion draft, Reeve needed to restock the rotation \u2014 and Coffey was an ideal get.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a great coach and I\u2019ve always known that from afar, so the fact that I can see it first-hand is really cool,\u201d Coffey said. \u201cI’m still learning a lot.\u201dV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MINNEAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Nia Coffey has changed teams five times in a 10-year WNBA career. Landing with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[28490,6429,66639,99,434],"class_list":["post-709516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-lynx","tag-minnesota","tag-nia-coffey","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}